


Stop my Shaking

by destielsuperwholockbandhoorah



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Little bit of angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:00:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destielsuperwholockbandhoorah/pseuds/destielsuperwholockbandhoorah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas has been gone for so long. And today he is coming back, back to the life he had left behind thinking he would never see it again, and barely daring to hope that it will take him back again. But of course it does, and much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop my Shaking

**Author's Note:**

> So I would tell you what Cas's job was, but it's a secret. He'd have to kill you. Sorry.

His hands shook harder as he came closer to the house. Castiel clasped them together in an effort to calm his nerves and the hands’ shivers. It worked a little, he could still feel the tremors through his arms, but his hands, warm and a little bit sweaty as they clung together, steadied each other. Though when separate, they shook together they were better. Castiel tried to push the metaphor out that the thought had brought to him. It wouldn’t do to have any sort of good expectations for today.

It had been so long since he ha been to this place. It looked almost the same and Castiel couldn’t decide if that made him feel worse or better. He figured that it lent a sense of familiarity and comfort to the scene that he didn’t deserve. Who was he to disturb this place again? He nearly turned back, as he had so many times before. But today, he was going. He had promised a friend and he never broke a promise.

Well, he had broken one promise. The one he had wanted to keep most. In a perfect world, today would help to turn the wound of that break into a scar instead of an open wound. He hoped this would help, though he feared it would rend him into pieces. No matter what happened here though, it would all be over after today. This was his last chance.

Each shaky step he took up the driveway towards the all too familiar door increased the dread and worry pooling in his stomach. Castiel wasn’t sure he could remain standing. But he did.

And finally, he was at the door. The sound of his footsteps stopped, and all Castiel could hear was his own frantically beating heart and his ragged breaths. He couldn’t do this.

Yes, he could do this. He had to. He had a promise to keep, and another one to mend.

He let his hands free of each other, and his right one strayed to the door, coming to rest with a flat palm on the sun warmed wood. He felt the slightly chipped paint under his fingers, felt the simple warmth bringing a bit of life back into his terror chilled fingers. Castiel took one last deep breath, raised his hand off of the door, formed a fist, and knocked.

He drew his once more shaking hand back, and let both fall lamely to his sides. Suddenly, an assurance he might have had left him to be consumed by doubts and plagued by anxiety once more. What if he wasn’t home? How angry would he be? Would he hit him? Would he cry? Would he slam the door in Castiel’s face? What if there was someone else? What if he or she opened the door? What would he say if they did? What would he say if it was _him_ who opened the door? Hadn’t he planned this? Why couldn’t he remember? And one last desperate though, a forbidden one. What if he – no, Castiel couldn’t even begin to think it. It wouldn’t happen.

All his swirling thoughts were halted immediately as he heard stomping feet and a slightly angry voice approaching the door.

“I told you people before, I don’t care about your...” the door was thrown open, “Jesus Christ…” the last words fell off the man’s tongue as he saw Castiel. Cas figured the last words had had a double meaning. They finished his sentence and expressed his current sentiments. How fitting. He figured it would not do to bring back the old joke of, “No, I’m Castiel.”

The man at the door stood staring, his mouth hanging open and his hand clutching the door as if holding him up. His green eyes were wide with disbelief and shock, and they were staring into the blue ones across from them in a way that Castiel had only been able to see in dreams for so long. He had missed it. He had missed those eyes.

Despite what he was sure was going to happen next, Castiel let himself be oblivious and enjoy this for a moment. He drunk in the image of the man before him like a man starved for food and drink. And indeed, he had been starved. Oh, he couldn’t describe how much he had missed this vision. Those eyes, those freckles, the hands, the face, the body, the lips, the voice… everything. He felt as if he could die happy now, just to have seen him again, like this, no matter what.

At last he found his voice, breaking the heavy silence between them. He lowered eyes.

“Hello Dean.”

He cursed himself silently. That was all he could think to say? Just “hello” again, like he always had said every time before. It felt insufficient, and yet at the same time, he knew there was nothing else he could have said. There were no words for what he was doing.

He didn’t watch Dean’s face for a reaction to his words. He couldn’t look at him, because suddenly, after feasting his eyes, he was filled again with cold, heart-stopping dread, and his eyes were too heavy to lift away from the two pairs of shoes, one on a welcome mat, the other on a wooden floor. The silence stretched awfully, and Castiel fought the urge to turn tail and run away as far and as fast as he could.

He couldn’t see Dean, but he did hear the soft, almost broken voice whisper his name. “Castiel.” His eyes were brimming and his vision blurred. He fought the tears. He couldn’t cry now. He had no right. He said nothing, fearing that words would start the flow of tears.

“You’re… alive.” Dean said, voice still quiet, pained, disbelieving. But not angry, and not bitter. Finally, Castiel was able to meet his eyes again. Dean had barely moved. His expression open, a mixture of great pain and joy somehow at the same time. His mouth still hung slightly open, and his eyes were shining, wet with unshed tears. The sight caused Castiel to lose the battle in himself, and the salty tears began to form two twin tracks down his cheeks, starting the river, the cascade that he couldn’t stop.

“So long Cas, it was so long… and I thought you were…” Dean couldn’t say it, the word that both of them were thinking. _Dead_. Yes, to the world, Castiel had been dead. Dean’s expression was beginning to close off, but fell open at Castiel’s next words.

“I know,” his voice was thick and rough and deep through the tears, sounding odd to him somehow, like it was odd to hear his voice and Deans together again.

“I’m sorry, ”Cas continued. He covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingers to his face as if in an effort to stop the tears. “I couldn’t… and… you know…” he couldn’t even form the sentences. “And I’m sorry… so sorry.” The last words broke with a sob, and he sounded broken and pathetic and he couldn’t care less.

All at once, Castiel was surrounded by something. Something warm and soft and smelling of leather. Dean. He had wrapped Castiel up in his arms, like Castiel had never expected to feel again, and neither of them had ever expected to have it happen again either. Cas’s heart stuttered and his breath hitched at the contact.

Dean held him tightly, whispering to him, “I know you had to Cas. I know…. I know…” and the words that dissolved Cas into nothing but sobs, “It’s okay.” He said it over and over again, and Cas couldn’t help but feel bad. Dean shouldn’t have to be the one comforting him. But he couldn’t even pull himself together enough to care. He just listened to Dean, drinking in the words. “I’ve got you. It’s okay angel. You’re back. I missed you so much but you’re home and that’s all that matters. It’s all gonna be okay.”

Castiel could feel Dean’s whole body shaking against his own, could tell he was feeling the same was Cas himself was. He found the strength to move his hands away from his face and wind them around Dean under his arms. It felt forbidden, he hadn’t done it in so long. But Cas had done a lot of forbidden things. He wasn’t about to stop now. He never wanted to let go. Neither of them said much anymore. Dean had buried his face in Cas’s neck, and Castiel could fell the wetness of tears soaking into his skin. He had his own face pressed into Dean’s hair. It was soft and a little bit prickly, and it was perfect. Their hands clutched at one another’s backs, holding tight to the fabric, their shaking arms pressed into the person they held.

And just like Cas’s hands had done before, the two quivering bodies clung to one another, slowly allowing the shaking to stop, like two quivering pieces of what might be a whole holding each other together. After an eternity, the sobs faded, and Castiel was left with a warmth spreading through his limbs from his heart. He could barely believe this all.

Here he was again, somewhere where he never thought he would be again. Holding Dean, kneeling on the front porch of a place he had once called home, somewhere he now just barely dared to hope to call home once again. The hope felt fragile but he clung to it. He hadn’t had hope in so long.

As the last of the tears fell away from the two of them, they were simply left there, clinging to each other. Cas’s knees hurt, his feet were asleep, there was a crick in his shoulder, and he imagined Dean felt similarly. But he didn’t care. Neither of them did.it was all the best feeling in the world because it was also the feeling of holding the other.

He felt Dean shift slightly, and cuddle closer to him hug no longer desperate and holding each other’s pieces in, but for comfort, for happiness. Cas lifted his head a little and moved his hand from Dean’s back to tentatively stroke his hair, comforting himself as much as the man he loved more than life itself. “I missed you so much,” he whispered, and felt Dean grin and shift in response. Suddenly, his view was filled with shining green eyes, red rimmed from crying but beautiful just the same. They were no longer sad, there was a smile in them, a teasing grin that Castiel remembered all too well falling in love with.

“I missed you too.”

“I’m-” Castiel began, but was cut off by the brief connection of Dean’s lips to his own. It was momentary, and only a brush, but it send a whole new kind of shivers down Castiel’s spine. He had so often thought about kissing Dean, knowing at the time that he would never do it again. Maybe he had been wrong. Cas now fancied he could just still barely taste and feel Dean’s lips on his own, though the other man had pulled away.

Dean was talking. “You don’t have to explain it or apologize or whatever. I know they made you, I know It’s your job. I’m just glad you came back to me. If I’m gonna be pissed at anyone it’s those bastards you work for.”

“Worked.”

“What?”

“Worked for. Past tense. I’m done. I’m out.”

Then Dean smiled. A real, full smile, teeth and all, and Castiel felt as if his heart might explode.

“You’ll never have to leave me again.” Dean breathed.

That made Cas’s stomach clench up. “Does that mean… you want me to… stay?” Cas barely dared ask, barely dared hope.

Dean laughed a little. “Cas sometimes you are really an idiot.”

“I don’t-” Cas began, but was cut off once again by a kiss. And again, it was to short and too chaste to provide any sort of satisfaction, but it somehow still sent a thrill through Castiel.

“Course I want you to stay,” Dean mumbled shyly, forehead pressed against Cas’s, arms still wound tight around the back of the other man, as if afraid to let him go, lest he might disappear again.

Castiel couldn’t hold back any longer, and nor did he want to. He leaned forward this time, a simple press of the lips soon becoming something more, something deeper. Something hungry. Cas had almost forgotten the taste of Dean, and that was entirely unacceptable, so he allowed himself as much taste as he wanted. He had almost forgotten how his lips and tongue moved, and how they felt pressed against his own, driving out all other thoughts, save _Dean_.

His hand still held the back of Dean’s head, holding him to him. Both men kissed with a fervor and a need that reflected their time apart, hug turning to touches and soft movements and pleasure.

Cas moaned slightly, and Dean laughed a little. “I think you need to come inside, as in right now.”

“I would agree,” Cas replied, a bit breathless.

And so they got off their knees (for now) and made their way inside, the door swinging shut behind them. They lost no time in finding the bedroom, memories of times past guiding them.

*             *             *

A little while later, Dean lay ensconced in Cas’s arms, both of them tangled up in the sheets and the press of the bare flesh of the other person. They both were smiling, lost in the bliss of the thing neither of them had had in years.

“I love you so much.” Cas whispered to Dean’s hair, not caring if he was asleep or awake, just needing to say it.

Dean shifted (apparently he was awake) and rolled so that he cold press a last kiss to the exposed skin of Cas’s collarbone.

“I love you too angel.”

There was a lot to fix, of course, several years to bridge and catch up on. Family to call, friends to give explanations to. There were old habits to fall into, a new rhythm around each other to be found. There was pain to overcome and things and issues to be talked over.

But Cas knew they could do it. He could do anything if he had Dean. That was the only reason he was still alive. They could do it. They would.

Both fell asleep wrapped in the other, with smiles on their faces, and hearts lighter than either of them had been in years.

*             *             *

_A few months later_

It had been easier than they could ever had anticipated, falling back in with each other. Other people had actually been the hardest, their disbelief and their scorn. But they could bear it. And eventually everyone accepted that this was how things were again. Dean and Cas, like fate.

The hardest had actually been Sam, Dean’s younger brother. He had had the anger that Dean hadn’t. Anger for leaving Dean, for breaking his heart. That had broken Cas’s all over again to hear. But Dean had convinced Sam, it had taken time before Castiel no longer received glares from the younger man, but it definitely helped that Dean seemed genuinely okay now, Sam idolized his brother, and Cas no longer had the commitment to his job. And so, now even Sam would smile at him and give him a hug and tell him he was glad to see him.

Most of coming back had been overwhelming for Cas, who had been so used to the dark environment of his job, a place that Dean couldn’t even being to imagine. But Dean’s light and both of their joy brought Cas back into the world. And nearly every day, he thought his heart might just stop from the sheer love and happiness he felt. It was so good to be back here.

And if he woke in the night with nightmares, there was now someone beside him to grab him and hold him close and tight. Again, they could hold each other together. And by now, after a few months, Cas barely ever had nightmares anymore. And neither did Dean.

Today, they had gone out for dinner.

Dean had dressed up a little since they were going to a moderately nice place, which was a bit weird to Cas, though his didn’t question it. Dean got weird urges sometimes. The important thing was that Dean was wearing dress pants and a deep blue button up, and Cas was having difficulty restraining himself from removing said clothing items from his boyfriend. Cas was in his usual, black slacks and a white shirt. But no tie. Not anymore.

Dinner had been wonderful and delicious, Dean had chosen well (of course) and the event had been full of laughter and smiles and bright conversation.

They took a walk afterwards, just a stroll along the sidewalk and through the park maybe. Castiel imagined that if souls shone with visible light, he and Dean could light up the entire world.

Out of the blue, Dean pulled Cas into a kiss (not that he was complaining) and when it ended, Dean didn’t pull away. He remained close to Cas, their noses almost brushed and their breath mingled in the cool night air between their mouths.

Cas restrained himself from closing the gap right then because he could sense that Dean had something to say, but he did not stop his eyes from straying the open collar of Dean’s shirt, and he didn’t stop himself from licking his lips.

“Cas.”

“Mmm hmm?”

“Cas look at me.” Cas did, smiling to see Dean’s eyes.

“What is it Dean?”

Dean took a deep breath. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” A slight breeze ruffled their hair and sent the faint smell of desserts wafting into their noses from the baker a block over.

“You don’t understand, I love you, so much.”

“I’m sure I do understand, and I’m telling you, I love you too.”

Dean smiled and reached a hand up to rub Cas’s jaw.

“Cas, I love you, and-”

“Dean, that’s the third time you’ve said that.” Cas laughed a little and wondered what was going on.

“I know, shut up, let me finish.” Dean griped, his eyes betraying that he wasn’t mad at all.

Cas just nodded, amused.

“I love you and-” Cas tried to hold in a little laugh and Dean glared at him (eyes softening quickly) “-and that’s why-”

Suddenly, Dean had dropped out of view, and Cas’s heart leapt to his mouth. This couldn’t be happening! Was this really happening?

“-I wanted to ask you to stay with me forever.”

It was happening. Because there was Dean, down on one knee in front of Cas, right slap-bang in the middle of the park on a warm Thursday night. There was Dean, holding up a silver ring and looking at Cas like he was the most important thing in the universe, like he was the person that mattered most in the world.

Cas couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know how to make himself answer, to let free the word in his head. So instead, he settled himself down on his knees, so that he was level with Dean, staring into his eyes.

“Will you marry me, Cas?”

Castiel pulled Dean to him, wrapping him into a hug, until they much resembled how they had been not so long before.

“Cas?”

“Yes Dean, yes. Of course.” Cas was finally able to whisper, voice too filled with emotion to be trusted.

Dean pulled back a bit only to lean back in for a kiss. They pulled each other to their feet, not letting go even for a moment. They never would again. They had to though, of course.

When they did let go, they released each other but did not step back, and both watched as Dean took Cas’s hand and slid the slim metal band onto his finger.

“Forever, Cas,” Dean whispered with a slightly awed smile.

“I know.” And then he pulled Dean in for another kiss.

It felt like a promise. Cas had never been so happy to make a promise in his entire life. He knew that this was one he could keep. He felt it. Because now he was free, and free to be with Dean.

Forever.


End file.
